Hybrid Cloud Storage Solutions & Management
It may seem as if most organizations are moving all of their content to cloud collaboration platforms. However, there are several reasons why businesses small and large are discovering that hybrid cloud storage solutions and hybrid cloud management are their best options.
Cloud storage services have sound benefits – they’re cost-effective and enable employees to access their content anywhere and from multiple devices. But it can be difficult for some businesses to justify a complete migration to the cloud from their existing on-premises storage system.
Three Reasons Enterprises May Seek Hybrid Cloud Management
1. Businesses have put a lot of time and money into architecting their on-premises systems.
Businesses seek hybrid solutions when they have too much invested in their existing legacy storage platform to abandon it. In addition to system customizations and capital investments, enterprises often have several line-of-business applications tightly integrated with these on-premises systems. Migrating to a cloud storage service, in this case, is simply not a viable option.
2. Not all content is cloud-compliant.
Security, compliance or data retrieval performance mandates often require that content must be stored on-site within the organization’s data center. In a hybrid environment, enterprises must keep sensitive records on-premises in accordance with compliance mandates. Such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and others. All the while still enabling users to securely collaborate with external parties and across multiple devices.
3. New systems pose new challenges.
New storage platforms often come with additional hurdles including user adoption and risk of business disruption. When systems are synchronized, content is automatically populated in the new platform. For example, users can adopt at their own pace, and business continues as usual. Meanwhile, the existing IT infrastructure fully integrates with the new system. Synchronization also enables enterprises to avoid vendor lock-in. Consequently, this can be critical in the ever-changing landscape of cloud collaboration.
“There are many business drivers that demand that companies deploy hybrid storage solutions,” said Mark Brazeau, CEO of DryvIQ. “These include user resistance; stove-piped organizations; merged companies, that each have a unique set of distinct storage platforms; and integration to existing back-end processing systems. These hurdles sometimes make consolidation impossible, creating the principal driver behind system co-existence.”
Hybrid Storage Solutions in Action
Tom Morris, Chief Technology Officer for Landmark Field Services, said that having a way to anchor all of Landmark’s storage platforms is key to the operation of the business. “In Oil and Gas, we have field offices and mobile workers all over the place. They are all spread out, which is why the Cloud is so perfect for us. But everyone uses their own system. We have as much diversity as you can possibly imagine in our IT infrastructure,” Morris said. “But we’ve got to have a center of gravity. We have to anchor the cloud by something that is completely agnostic, which is our Network File Share. It’s impossible to manage all that we do without it.”
Morris added that it’s easier to integrate all of their different systems together than to enforce one specific storage scenario company-wide. “We can’t enforce one idea, so we have to be agnostic. It turned out to be a real strength for us, accommodating all of these different systems. We spend less time enforcing rules, and more time getting the job done.”
“We spend less time enforcing rules, and more time getting the job done.”
Businesses now have the option of creating true hybrid storage environments with platform-to-platform, bi-directional hybrid content synchronization without the historical heavy-lifting or the use of third-party migration services.
“Organizations are no longer tethered to their existing on-premises systems,” Brazeau continued. “DryvIQ enables a variety of co-existence, expansion, and system-consolidation scenarios. With hybrid storage solutions, companies can take advantage of the most cost-effective and compliant systems with very little technical effort.”
